Saturday, August 02, 2008

Assisted Suicide Nightmare

I told this story slightly differently the other day. If you missed it then, you might want to read it now. It speaks of what's happening in Oregon behind the Death with Dignity law we started using on October 27th,1997. This is REALLY IMPORTANT! If you thought (as I did) that this was a good idea... think again.

When government decides what your life is worth

Posted on July 31, 2008 by worldviewsmatter

by Rick Swengel

Randy Stroup has cancer.

Tragically, he does not have health insurance.

Not to worry. The state of Oregon, like most states has provisions for helping those who do not have insurance. Chemotherapy, though, is expensive. In fact, it’s so expensive that the state of Oregon has decided that the taxpayers cannot afford to foot the bill. But the compassionate state of Oregon has a solution for Randy Stroup. The state will pay for physician-assisted suicide?

That’s right. Oregon’s physician-assisted suicide law provides for taxpayers to pick up the tab for those who cannot pay for the service themselves. Can’t afford to pay your doctor to kill you? Hey, the state’s got your back!

The Oregon Health Plan uses guidelines established by the state legislature to be certain that citizens are informed of all their “choices” including assisted suicide. DAWG Oregon (Disabilities Activist Work Group) makes the point that “the right to die will become a duty to die.”

The state of Oregon rations health care. Every government-run healthcare system in the world rations care. Rationing and raising taxes are the only ways government run healthcare can deal with costs. The rationing of care necessarily result in denial of care. Promotion of assisted suicide takes us farther down that “slippery slope” predicted by opponents of assisted suicide.

Government agencies have established values for human life. The Environmental Protection Agency recently lowered human value to $7.22 million (down from $8.04 million), the Department of Transportation gives your life a value of $5.8 million (a $3 million increase), and the Consumer Product Safety Commission gives you a value of $5 million. If our government has established the financial value of our lives, how far are we from being obligated to die when we become “too expensive” to keep alive. Dr. Peter Singer of Princeton University (De Camp Professor of Bioethics) has asserted for some time that the chronically ill, the handicapped, and the aged should be euthanized for the good of the rest of society. The New Yorker has called Singer the “most influential living philosopher.” If this is true, be prepared for the coming death sentence you will receive when your life becomes too inconvenient or too expensive.